Stewardship of organizations typically requires organizational management to govern the flow of information. The flow may include acquisition, processing, storage, and distribution of the information, as well as other activities that involve the information. The stewardship may require that managers exercise control over the flow to satisfy goals of the organization. The control may include imposing constraints on the flow, viewing information in the flow, auditing the characteristics of the flow, or other measures. The goals may include financial, strategic, regulatory, risk management goals or other organizational goals. The goals are often set and understood by managers. The goals are often defined by or related to attributes of the information.
The information is often encoded, classified and manipulated by machines in an information system. The encoding may require the formulation and storage of digital data elements.
The flow of a data element in the information system may be characterized by data lineage. The data lineage is typically expressed in terms of the encoding, the machines and other technical attributes of the information system.
Typically, information technology specialists who are familiar with the information system are knowledgeable about data lineage, but are not knowledgeable about the goals. The managers are knowledgeable about the goals, but are not knowledgeable about the data lineage. Therefore, managers have a limited ability to control the flow.
It would be desirable, therefore, to provide apparatus and methods for controlling data flow using the parameters of the information.